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*Although I didn’t intend for this blog post to turn out the way that it did, this entry is kind of a personal one. I talk about wrestling, but this story is more about the journey I made last year and how wrestling fit into all that. For those not interested in reading about the personal parts of my personal life, click the x at the top of the this page and that solves the problem. Thanks.

So sorry to have been away from you for so long, blog. I wouldn’t leave without good reason, so allow me to explain myself.

You see, around the time I started Absolute Smark (June 2013?), I had nothing going on professionally. I was working a job I hated, surrounded by people I hated, and I chose to deal with my problems by focusing on a project that had nothing to do with my career, but one that make me happy. Happy for me is plunking down in front of the tube every Monday and watching Raw and expressing my thoughts on the show or reacting to wrestling news. Or, more accurately, I chose to ignore how I felt and gloss over my IRL career issues. That only worked for a little while.

Once I turned off the computer and all the wrestling talk stopped, I was still completely miserable. I had no idea what to do to make things better for myself. Jobs don’t grow on trees theses days, so I made a decision to stick things out at work and hope for the best. However, my job at that time allowed me to make detailed blog posts about wrestling, and for that reason, this blog was created and ran for as long as it did without interruption last year.

Then, unfortunately, I had a health scare. Nothing extremely serious and all my body parts are still intact, but it made me take some time to reevaluate what was truly important to me. What’s important is my family. Realizing this, I chose to step back from writing and watching wrestling and focus more on being a wife and taking care of my health. Which, again, worked only for a little while. Health wise, I’m doing much better than I was. I was tired, sick and full of stress and anxiety. 2013 was a year full of hurt for me, and things only got better at the tail end.

September of last year, I got promoted at work. This promotion meant moving to a different department from the one I currently worked for. I moved away from the people I hated to a department with bunch of people that I didn’t know. This promotion also meant more money, better and not so late hours, and a chance to start from scratch. Naturally, I dove in headfirst and focused only on making a good impression professionally, and that has paid off tremendously. I was able to attain another pay raise despite only being in the department for 3 months, and I can tell the people I work with respect me. That does wonders for your well-being. I went from being completely nerve wracked and totally unsure of myself and my abilities, to having no stress or worries at all. It was a welcome change. But, one good thing lead to something else.

At the time of my promotion, I grew more and more disappointed in how the Daniel Bryan “good for business” storyline was playing itself out. Daniel Bryan is a big reason why I got so heavily back into wrestling in the first place, and I thought him not holding a championship was unacceptable. (Yes, I am nearly 30 years old and throwing hissy fits about my favorite wrestler not being champion.That is extremely lame, and I apologize.)

Anyway, Daniel not being champion in the neat time period that I had set for him to hold the belt disappointed me in that funny way that only wrestling does, so I chose to step away from watching until he did something “meaningful.”

Deep down inside, I knew that I would never truly be able to quit wrestling. As you can see by this post, I’ve finally decided to come back. But my return will not be the way that you’ve grown accustomed to. I’m still trying to figure out how to juggle both my writing and keeping up with the endless hours of WWE programming that occur every week. Between figuring out how to juggle and my own personal aspirations for what I want my wrestling writing to me, I cannot say for certain that I will always have a Raw report or always be here at this site at all. My intentions are good, but I only have so many waking hours in a day that I can actually do the things I really enjoy. Believe me, if I were able to be paid to keep this blog up, my heart and soul would remain here always.

So. That brings me to 2014 is upon us. My 30th birthday is on Monday, and I have more confidence in my writing abilities than I have ever. Meaning, in my whole life, this is the year where I finally feel confident enough in my abilities to make some headway in the world. I think this year will be time for me to explore what impact I would like to make on the written (and verbal?) world of wrestling and how I would like to be remembered. Naturally, I want to do the very best that I can. My only fear is failure to do what I want to do.

I’ve decided to make some New Year’s Resolution’s for Absolute Smark and the overall goals of my “professional” wrestling writing.

I, Shanna Harris, resolve to do the following with Absolute Smark:

1. Write at least one entry on my general thoughts on wrestling once per month. If I can manage more than that, so be it.

I, Shanna Harris, have also set some goals for myself not involving this site:

1) To appear on one wrestling related podcast. Be it with Ring-Rap, or someplace else.

2) To attain more than 100 Twitter followers.

These rather small goals are what I hope to be jumping points to attaning a dream that I’ve long nursed: To write on a regular basis about wrestling (possibly making money while doing so?). It’s a little dream, but one that’s eluded me for a long time. Hopefully writing everything down will help me remember and realize what I can do and what I have left to do.

I apologize for being gone for so long, but I am not dead as some may have feared. I look forward to seeing where this New Year takes me.

If you’ve click this page looking for updates, wondering for news, or just plain curiosity, thank you. I appreciate that you care, and I hope that 2014 will be a year of growth, and not regression.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and watch Daniel Bryan join the Wyatt Family.